I Hope We Can Still Be Friends

Freddy

Hey, Frederic?  Yeah, hi.  How’s that ballade going?  Lots of notes?  Yeah…listen…

We need to talk.

It’s not you, it’s me.  You’re GREAT.  It’s just…well.   My heart’s never fully been in our relationship, and it’s been drifting even more the older I get.  I know, I know,  it sounds harsh, but you deserve the truth.  You deserve a pianist and a scholar who can appreciate you for YOU, not someone who tries to make you into something you’re not.

You know our relationship has been troubled from the start, and I really was primarily attracted to you because of–I’m embarrassed to say–peer pressure.  I was a young, naïve pianist, desperate to prove my worth at the keyboard and willing to play ANYTHING to advance in the ranks, no matter whether or not my heart was in it.  I’m not proud to say this was the reason behind many of my Liszt benders–bouts of time that always left me feeling hollow, dirty, and cheap.  But you, YOU…you were better.  The teachers and friends I so admired put a lot of stock in people who played your music, because YOU were more than flash and trash, more than cheap dazzle and pianistic pyrotechnics.  You had soul, you had beauty, you had nuance.  You were what I needed to impress my peers and grow as a musician.

And so I decided to learn your Fantasie for my junior recital, a piece that was, at the time, way out of my league.  And it is a great piece of music, and I really did like it.  And because everyone else loved it, I kept waiting for the inevitable love that I would surely feel for it and for you.  I worked and worked, learning the piece, listening to more of your works, and waiting.  Eventually, I got sick of practicing all my recital repertoire, and thought, “AHA!  I cannot love this piece until I’m done with it, until I have some distance from these DAMN PARALLEL THIRDS.”  In denial, I pushed down the niggling thoughts of how much I already loved the rest of my recital pieces.  And so, my recital came and went, and I waited to be overcome with love and desire for you.

But that love never came.

I never understood it!  I was a piano student, enamored with my instrument and of 19th century music–I SHOULD have lusted for you.  I should have LIVED and BREATHED for you, rending my garments until my teacher allowed me to play you again.  Everyone else did!  What was WRONG with me?  Please believe me when I say that I TRIED to adore you the way I knew I should have.  Every now and again I’d listen to a recording of a piece that truly moved me–your Barcarolle springs to mind (seriously, kudos on that one)–and I’d think I’d finally found my way in!  But then…there was always piece after piece of truly beautiful music that I certainly appreciated but never actually moved me.  Truthfully, your music has never spoken to me.  And now, I have to come clean…

There’s someone else.

(Rest of the performance here, here, and here.)

There’s always been someone else, really.  Schumann just gets me, and I get him, and well–we’re really very happy together.  And so, it’s with heavy heart that I’ve decided to stop trying to force myself to love you.  It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to you, and besides–there will always be plenty of angsty pre-teen girls to play your E minor Prelude and swoon, plenty of little old blue-haired ladies who only know your E-flat Nocturne (Op. 9, No. 2; I know there’s more than one!), and plenty of dedicated performers and scholars who can truly appreciate your genius and beauty.

I have a feeling you’ll get on just fine without me.

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